Air-conditioners for vehicles having an airflow regulator disposed in a duct for regulating a rate of flow of air discharged from an air outlet of the duct are known as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication (JP-A) No. 2001-191790.
The airflow regulator of the disclosed vehicle air-conditioner, as shown here in FIG. 12, comprises an air blowout unit 100 assembled in an air outlet or vent of a duct 110. The air blowout unit 100 includes a hollow cylindrical member 101 disposed inside the air outlet, an orifice 102 connected to an end of the cylindrical member 101 facing a passenger compartment 112 of the vehicle, a nozzle member 103 disposed inside the cylindrical member 101 behind the orifice 102, and a tubular rotating member 104 loosely fitted over a part of the cylindrical member 101 from an outlet end thereof including the orifice 102. The cylindrical member 101 has two axially spaced rows of openings 105 formed in a peripheral wall thereof at regular intervals in a circumferential direction of the cylindrical member 101. The tubular rotating member 104 has a pair of openings 105 formed in a peripheral wall thereof in diametrically opposite relation. The nozzle member 103 has a pair of slide pins 107 projecting from an outer cylindrical surface in opposite directions. The slide pins 107 each extend through a guide groove 109 formed diagonally in the peripheral wall of the cylindrical member 101 and is received in an axial guide groove 108 formed in the tubular rotating member 104.
With this arrangement, by turning the tubular rotating member 104 about its own axis, the nozzle member 103 moves in an axial direction relative to the cylindrical member 101 between a first position shown in a left half of FIG. 12 where the nozzle member 103 is located close to the orifice 102, and a second position shown in a right half of FIG. 12 where the nozzle member 103 is located remotely from the orifice 102.
When the nozzle member 103 is in the first position shown in the left half of FIG. 12, the openings 106 of the rotating member 104 and those openings 105 of the cylindrical member 101 which are arranged in a row near the orifice 102 are closed by the nozzle member 103, so that conditioned air flows at a high speed from an airflow passage 111 in the nozzle member 103 into the passenger compartment 112.
Alternatively, when the nozzle member 103 is in the second position shown in the right half of FIG. 12, those openings 105 of the cylindrical member 101 which are arranged in a row remote from the orifice 102 are closed by the nozzle member 103, so that conditioned air flows in a diffusing fashion from airflow passages (extending successively through the openings 106 of the rotating member 104 and those openings 105 of the cylindrical member 101 arranged in a row near the orifice 102) into the passenger compartment 112.
Due to the airflow passages formed in a radial direction of the air blowout unit 100 across the openings 105, 106 of the tubular rotating member 104 and the cylindrical member 101 during an air diffuser mode operation, the air blowout unit (airflow regulator) 100 of the known vehicle air-conditioner requires a relatively large space for installation. In the event the duct 110 has only a limited space for installation of an airflow regulator, the known air blowout unit 100 may not be installed in an operable manner.